Between The Eers: The Morning After Oklahoma State
Between The Eers: The Morning After Oklahoma State
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:10 Hello everybody, it is the morning after Oklahoma State.
00:13 I'm Scott Callen here on Between the Ears,
00:15 West Virginia falling to Oklahoma State 48 to 34.
00:19 And as we talked about last night on the post game show,
00:22 it was a game West Virginia more than had a chance.
00:26 And they should have really probably won the game.
00:30 If you think about it, they had a four point lead, they had got to stop.
00:34 Looked like they were about to take some more time off the clock,
00:36 potentially go up two scores.
00:39 Or had at least had the opportunity to do that with the ball getting back in their
00:42 hands and then all of a sudden Andrew Wilson Lamp runs into and
00:47 just absolutely trucks Preston Fox on a punt return.
00:51 Looked like Oklahoma State guy would probably pushed him a little bit.
00:57 But I mean, it's definitely not a penalty.
01:00 It just gave him a little shove and it seemed like Wilson Lamp just
01:05 couldn't stop himself in time and
01:08 ended up in what turned out to be a catastrophe for West Virginia.
01:12 So instead of having the ball up four, taking some time off and
01:17 maybe going up two scores, Oklahoma State scores.
01:21 West Virginia gets to about midfield, they fail on fourth and
01:25 two on Garrett Green's bad decision to keep the football instead of hand it off.
01:29 And then boom, Olly Gordon goes the other way.
01:32 And now it's all of a sudden a two score Oklahoma State game.
01:36 So here West Virginia sits four and
01:39 three on the season two and two in Big 12 play.
01:44 And once again, it feels like Neil Brown is,
01:48 I wouldn't say he's quite on the hot seat just yet,
01:52 but it's starting to swing back in that direction.
01:56 I mean, you can't lose games that you should win,
02:01 what Eugene said last night.
02:04 Last week, that's a very winnable game against Houston, very, very winnable.
02:09 You control the first quarter of that game, first quarter and some change.
02:13 And then you go into the half trailing, how, I don't know.
02:18 It all comes down to discipline.
02:20 Even after that touchdown,
02:22 I know we're not really trying to talk about that game as much.
02:25 It still goes back to discipline, Garrett Green taking his helmet off.
02:29 Guys on defense on the hill Mary play, didn't know what they were doing,
02:32 they didn't get back in time.
02:34 Last night, it's just flat out discipline again,
02:37 Ben Cutter hitting a guy laid out of bounds.
02:41 That's 15 yards on top of a 15 yard face mask,
02:44 you just give him 33 yards down the field.
02:47 And all of a sudden they're in plus territory.
02:49 And it goes again to some false starts, obviously the muff punt.
02:56 There's just a lot of things that have happened in these last two weeks.
03:02 That make you said, well, this is yeah,
03:05 this is your typical Neil Brown coach team.
03:09 Those games that they won against TCU and Texas Tech,
03:12 where we kept saying over and over and over again,
03:15 that these are typically the types of games they would find a way to lose.
03:19 Well, guess what, now they're losing them.
03:21 So I guess the law of averages is playing out a little bit.
03:25 But there's five games left here on the schedule and
03:29 I mean, this isn't the most daunting schedule by any means.
03:35 It's a very, very favorable schedule.
03:38 But as we've seen the last two weeks,
03:40 West Virginia was projected to win both games and have dropped both games.
03:44 And the feeling that I get from the fan base is just look,
03:49 it is way past time to put together a product on the field that is worth
03:54 something that is making strides.
03:57 It's a fatigued fan base.
03:59 They want a winner.
04:01 And last night I did a little digging.
04:06 There were at least five coaches that were hired to power five jobs
04:10 the same year as Neil Brown, including Neil.
04:13 Some of them, there may be a couple of others that may have been fired already,
04:17 but there's five coaches today that are still with that program that were hired
04:21 in 2019.
04:23 Ryan Day, you can't even make a comparison there.
04:26 He's 48 and six.
04:27 He's got some of the best talent in the country every single year.
04:30 Mack Brown at North Carolina, 36 and 23.
04:32 Let's be real, North Carolina is not a football program,
04:36 they're a notorious football program.
04:38 They're not a football school.
04:40 Yet Mack Brown has just brought a whole lot of success to that program.
04:46 And they're a top 10, top 15 team right now.
04:49 Now they're gonna fall because they're lost to Virginia, but still,
04:51 they are a competitive team that puts together a chance to get to the conference
04:56 title game just about every year.
04:59 Chris Climate at Kansas State, he's now 35 and 22.
05:03 We all know the success that he's had at K State.
05:05 Again, same conference as big as Neil Brown, came in the same time as Neil Brown,
05:11 has had a similar situation recruiting wise as Neil Brown because,
05:16 let's be real here too, there's not five star talent just sitting in his backyard
05:21 in Manhattan, Kansas, just like there's not here in West Virginia.
05:24 But somehow he's 13 games over.
05:29 The Mendoza line.
05:30 Mike Loxley at Maryland, 25 and 25.
05:35 And then Neil Brown at 26 and 28.
05:37 So to me, if you just take a look at those five programs,
05:42 in the history and the success that all five of those programs have had,
05:48 West Virginia should be right behind, or
05:52 Neil Brown should be right behind Ryan Day at Ohio State.
05:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]
06:00 You can't tell me that West Virginia doesn't have more success and
06:04 more history than North Carolina, Kansas State, and Maryland.
06:08 And you can at least put up somewhat similar numbers to those types of coaches
06:12 that came in the same years as you.
06:13 I don't really understand it.
06:17 What are the excuses?
06:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]
06:23 And as I mentioned last night too, he's been here five years and
06:27 they've never been ranked.
06:28 That doesn't happen around here.
06:30 It might be okay in some other places, but it's not okay in West Virginia.
06:37 This is a proud program that consistently wins.
06:42 And if you look at the Big 12 as a whole, once Oklahoma and
06:49 Texas leave, West Virginia is the winningest program in the Big 12 ever.
06:58 They have the most success.
07:00 They have the most wins.
07:03 I think one percentage or like third.
07:05 They're one of that, no question, one of the best programs in the Big 12,
07:10 especially once Oklahoma and Texas leave.
07:13 So you should be towards the top.
07:15 Is Neil Brown gonna have this team at the top by next year?
07:18 That's a question for Rem Baker.
07:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]
07:23 The biggest question I have, and again, Garrett Green, he played his tail off.
07:27 He played really well for what he could do.
07:30 But he was 15 to 30.
07:32 I mean, this kid lives in the 50 to 53, 54% completion percentage range,
07:37 almost every game.
07:38 Heck of a runner.
07:40 But I think it would really benefit him and Nico, and Sean Boyle, and
07:46 any other quarterback that's gonna come through West Virginia under Neil Brown,
07:50 to have an actual quarterback's coach that has had
07:54 experienced coaching at the Power Five level.
07:56 Sean Reagan has been bouncing back and
08:00 forth when he first came to West Virginia with Neil.
08:03 He was the quarterback's coach, didn't have much success, clearly.
08:07 He goes to tight ends coach last year.
08:09 When Graham Harrell comes in, now he's back at quarterbacks.
08:14 So the guy that was coaching tight ends last year is now your quarterbacks coach.
08:17 Your head coach is calling the plays.
08:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]
08:23 That can't be a successful recipe.
08:25 If you're gonna compete in the Big 12, you need to have a quarterbacks coach
08:32 that has coached the Power Five level before, or
08:36 has played in it before, and knows how to teach it.
08:39 And I'm not trying to dog on Sean Reagan.
08:43 I'm sure he's a great coach, but as a quarterback, I want a guy that has so
08:49 much success and has so much history coaching the position.
08:53 And West Virginia has not had that since Neil came here in 2019.
08:58 And is it a coincidence that the quarterback play hasn't been great since 2019?
09:06 I think not.
09:06 So, and that's not the only spot on the coaching staff either.
09:13 If Neil does happen to return in 24, I think he has to make some adjustments.
09:18 Has to.
09:20 That entire staff that he brought with him from Troy,
09:24 there's gotta be some re-evaluations there.
09:27 If you look at across the country,
09:31 there's guys that have Power Five experience everywhere on their staffs.
09:35 And if they don't, they come from really highly respected Division IIs or
09:41 FCS or whatever the case may be.
09:43 These guys just won a couple games at Troy and not much else outside of that.
09:51 So I think there needs to be more experience on this staff,
09:56 particularly at the P5 level.
10:00 But Ryan Baker's got a decision first on Neil, and
10:05 then Neil's got a decision secondly on his staff.
10:09 We're still five games away from really seeing what direction this goes in.
10:14 But the way things have trended the last two weeks, it doesn't look good.
10:20 You got a tough game next week in the bounce house at UCF.
10:26 And if you lose that one, you come back home four and
10:29 four after a four and one start to the year.
10:31 So, we'll see what happens.
10:35 That'll do it for me today here on the morning after here on between the ears.
10:39 You can follow us on Twitter at Mountaineers now hit the subscribe button
10:42 at Mountaineers now as well.
10:44 And we'll be back here in a couple of days to break down West Virginia and
10:48 UCF and the keys to the game.
10:51 Take care.
10:51 [MUSIC]
11:01 (upbeat music)